Old school 509 purple shaft cam specs.

I have an old (1980) single bolt, RB, purple shaft .509 lift 292 duration, direct connection, hyd. flat tappet cam. I've since lost the cam card for valve timing events and lobe separation. I'd heard they redesigned this grind some years later. Does anyone have an old direct connection catalog or complete specs. for this cam?
Thanks group!

Does this help?

Cam card? Not from Mopar.

In the words of Muddy Waters:
“You can’t spend what you ain’t got, and you can’t lose what you ain’t never had”

Victory library will be your best resource and even that is debatable on certain grinds.

Ain't that right, When I read this post I went and looked at a new still in the box P4120235 484" lift camshaft and lifters and NO cam card. All you get is a label on the box with the specs, lucky I still have the original box. The box "was" pretty though, I guess that's where they spent the money instead of on the "cam card"?

Should have been ground on a 108 so I would imagine installed at 104 or even 102 depending on compression,etc.

DC 509 is part number P4120237
Its listed on A12's chart, towards the bottom.

They list a centerline of 108°. Is that suggested installed centerline or lobe separation angle. If installed centerline, what lobe separation angle was ground into this cam? Thanks forum.

All of those early cams were made by the cheapest, low bid sub contractors that Mopar could hire
I can't tell you how many D.C. cams i bought and returned to get a good one, I stop using them due to the lack of quality.
If you decide to try and use one make sure and degree it on at least two cylinders, I like to check both #1 and #6 so I don't have the change the degree wheel for T.D.C. while checking those lobes

108 is the lobe separation angle. If you install it at 108 intake centerline it will have split overlap. Usually these should instead be installed advanced a few degrees. 103 or 104 intake centerline is what I would go for.

If that is the 114 LSA, use it as a doorstop. JMO.

I've installed those 108 cams as far ahead as 100 depending on engine static compression. The tend to like being installed ahead.

Good luck with it.

Seems some people are confused between the meaning of LSA and Centerline.

You can change the installed centerline - you can’t change the LSA.

I doubt any manufacturer advises the user to install the cam using LSA.

The only confusion I see in this thread is Larry Sheppards 50 year old chart. Centerline is not ground into the cam, it is determined at assembly. The column labeled Centerline should be labeled Lobe Separation Angle and then he probably could have added another column labeled Recommended Installed Intake Centerline.



True but if the cam has symmetrical lobes as I am sure all of these cams do then if installed Straight Up the ICL will be the same as the LSA. In practice most people will install these cams advanced at least 4deg. resulting in an ICL less than the LSA.

At the risk of complicating this more, the Intake closing event is what affects cylinder pressure. When Harrold Brookshire was grinding NASCAR cams he didn't even tell the teams ICL and LSA. Probably because they are not really relevant with nonsymmetrical lobes.

Agreed, should have had two columns, Design Centerline and LSA. Both probably ignored by the vast majority of guys, they stabbed the cam and lined up the dots and hoped for the best. The more educamated guys know what to do.

As for the NASCAR guys, I bet they ran a ton of dyno sessions and knew exactly what the engines wanted for LSA and ICL.

That # 237 worked pretty well in our dirt track car on the long straight 1/2 mile track back in the 80s.

The first 2 cams on A12's list appear to be the same cams. Why 2 different part numbers?

I think the taper was different on the 6-pack cam.

Back in the late '80's...I had the "677" MP cam in my 440 powered '69 300 'vert.
Stock block/heads, just a three angle valve job, and fresh valve train. 10.1 comp. and headers.
We used a reconditioned CH4B intake, with a Holley 650. Engine ran out of steam at 4,500ish RPM.

A few months later, we swapped out to the .509 cam, installed it at 104 degrees. Changed to a new 3310 750 Holley.
What a HUGE night and day difference the way that car ran. With that combo (and a 8.75" 3.91 sure grip)...
It ran 14 teens -low 20's @99mph in the quarter mile..on L60-15 street tires and full 2-1/2" exhaust.
Won a few street races as well, including against a new (at the time) turbo T type Buick Regal.
Mr. Regal was shocked and saddened that a 4,500 lb. "big boat" had kicked his ass!

You changed at least two things, the cam and the carb. Any idea what made the biggest difference?

I would say they both made a big difference, but that .509 cam was perfect, for that combo.
If that same combo was in an A body, it would have been a high 11 second car...IMO.

My Duster 383 with that cam carb combo went 11.65 118, st Hemi vert

Forgot to mention, converter in my 300 was a Turbo Action unit... I don't remember the part number, but it was a 3000-3500 stall iirc.
Trans was all stock except for the converter, and a T/A mild shift kit.

That's awesome! You're Duster went mid 11's with that combo! Was it a street car also?

Never ran the 509 cam, though I did run the old Street Hemi grind in my 64 300, 750 carb, 4.10 gears and a stick car too. I miss that car, many a 454SS and Iroc Z got spanked with it.

How much did your '64 300 weigh? I always got a kick out of people's reactions
when they got spanked by a big C body!

No idea, I forget those details, it was the late 80's.

I like the idea of a hotrod 300, looking at an SRT8 300. If I could easily swap in a stick I might get it.

I've always installed the 509/292 108 LSA cam 4 degrees advanced. 104° ICL. That cam works great in my opinion, even though it's an old cam that everyone likes to crap on. Some of the old stuff still has it's place.

I had a 10:1 440 w/ stock 906 heads, just a 3 angle valve job, 509/292 cam, Performer rpm intake, 830 holley, headers, 3500 stall, 3.91 gear, in a 3700 lb cuda. Ran 11.80s at 112 mph on pump gas. Drove it everywhere.
Switched to some home ported 915s and it ran 11.40s at 117 mph.

No street car but should have. .030 over TRW slugs, stock 915 heads, .550 triple springs adj rockers, Torker intake 3310 Holly with 2” spacer, Hooker fender wells with 12” extension, stock 68 street Hemi vert, 4.88 8-3/4, 10.5/ 29 M&H slick S/S springs moved into frame, Carter pump. All steel car one van seat, heater removed, hoop with side bars. Best driving race car I ever had, stopped on a dime, KH brakes up front. 1981.
I put the engine in a race 68 Dart (big tires and 4000 vert) went 7.01 in eight, about a tenth and a half slower that his built 440. We ran mostly 1/8 mile

Since i don't see it listed and it wasn't widely discussed, at least in my cicle in the late 70's , what lobe seperation angle is this cam? All i find is a installed centerline of 108°. When I plug it into a camspec calculator, I have to enter a load separation angle of a 106° to get 38° overlap. Even though the box is 76°.[align:left][/align]

Centerline and LSA are the same on those 508-509 cams, IIRC. If it says 108, then use 108 for both. Then choose where to move the centerline when installing.

overlap comes up spot on in the wallace calculator 292 108 lsa

I bought one of those cams from Bob Mazzolini back in the day, when I started installing and degreeing it wasn't that cam, it was the 533 solid lifter cam in the 509 cam box
Mopar never mark those D.C. cams in any way for us, the consumers and racers, to I.D. them on the bench before installing them
Same thing later on buying a 590 solid lifer cam with lifters from him, it was a 557 cam in the 590 box, I called D.C. on that cam and was told that Mopar had switch vendors and they knew those new cams didn't have the proper lobe lift but they insisted they were still great cams ARHHHH I took that one back and ended up having to argue with Bob to take it back and refund my money back to me, that was the last Mopar D.C. cam I bought.

Thanks group.
This forum is the best!!

If you install that cam, and measure it, it likely will not have/match the advertised 0.050” duration. Probably closer to 242.

A 292 cam from the 70’s should have been a Racer Brown SSH-44.
I ran one of those for a while…….. it was a good cam.
My actual measurements had it as about 304@.006 and 244@.050.

That .533 cam has slightly more duration than a .590 solid.

As Fast said, back in the early Direct Connection days thr Racer Brown SSH-44 was the 509 purple shaft and I believe (don't quote me) the SSH-25 was the 484 cam with about 241 @.050.

In the early DC Engine manual they referred to the 509 as the 4 speed bracket cam and the 484 as the Automatic Cam

the 484 was a great 440 cam and the 509 got used in a lot of tight converter cars but still worked pretty decently.

The typical hot 440 set up for the Day was the '67 closed chamber 915 heads shaved at least .040" with a 509 and a TM-7 /4779 (750 DP) and a 340 or 383 (10 3/4") 'Road Runner' Converter. We used to put the cam in +4 rather than straight up. With 3.91's or 4.10's you could bust almost anything pretty consistently...Until the W2's started becoming available.

Before there was a Direct Connection, Chrysler carried the SSH 25 and 44. Later they released the Purple Shaft series cams, two offerings with specs close to the Racer Brown cams.

The early Purple Shaft cams were made by Camcraft and were excellent cams, circa mid 70’s.
Not sure who made them later.

The engine manual shows the Mopar part number for the SSH-44 as P3690812.

I don’t know how far back that number dates it.

The first use of the SSH series cams was the -25 and was for the Hemi, around 1967/68, part number was 2836158. I’m thinking the “P” prefix started early 1970’s.

In fact many of the earlier non - P numbers were simply carried over by adding the P.

i have used the SSH-25 cam in 383's, and at 4* advance installed, that works great !

The engine manual mentions that the new replacement for the street hemi cam came out in 1983.
That’s cam number- P4286631.
The 248, 260, 272 cams are all slightly higher part numbers, so my take on that is they were released around the same time.

The MP 484 and 509 cams are P412 numbers, so they should be from a bit earlier.